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The Department of Defense (DOD) is a hierarchical organization with parallel planning and execution cycles at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war. These cycles also exist for defense [...]

Shortly before reporting to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as the only active duty military attorney assigned to the Office of Counsel, I sat down with the incumbent for some [...]

In 1935, a former British secret agent of World War I vintage, Capt. Sigismund Payne Best, was summoned back into service by his old comrade in military intelligence, Col. Claude [...]

The network of intelligence fusion centers has been growing with over 70 operating at the urban, regional, and state levels. However, their model of using government portals for data collection is flawed due to the number of portals and the passive nature of the procedure. Weaknesses in their information dissemination and analysis and how they can be overcome are also discussed.

The lack of success of a 2004 intelligence community overhaul that put a single national intelligence director (DNI) in charge of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies is discussed. The strategy's failure to foster a successful collaboration among them and improve American intelligence performance is pushing Congress to review the provision and make changes.

The analysis of several government defense and intelligence agency large-scale acquisition programs that experienced significant cost and schedule growth shows that several critical factors need to be addressed in the preacquisition phase of the acquisition cycle. These include overzealous advocacy, technology readiness levels, life-cycle cost, schedule details, requirements maturity, acquisition and contract strategy, program office personnel tenure and experience, risk management, systems engineering, and trade studies. The results of this study--which incorporated data from industry responses, government and industry executive interviews, numerous studies, and reports--indicate that early preacquisition activities executed in a rigorous fashion can significantly reduce the risk of cost and schedule growth. In this paper, the root causes of the cost and schedule growth are discussed as well as techniques and alternatives to improve program performance. KEYWORDS: acquisition practices; project management; systems engineering; federal government

Several instances illustrate that the intelligence provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the past has mostly been correct but ignored by former presidents to the detriment of national interests.

A STRYKER BRIGADE company commander conducts an urban counter-ambush against an insurgent cell and gains valuable intelligence from the insurgents he detains. This intelligence is rapidly evaluated and analyzed through [...]

Since the restructuring of police services in Quebec, criminal intelligence now seems to play a primary role in optimizing police services and in crime-fighting strategies. This article examines the main [...], Suite a la restructuration de la carte policiere au Quebec, il appert que le renseignement criminel joue an role de premier plan dans l'optimisation des services de police et dans les strategies de lutte contre la criminalite. Dans cet article, nous examinons quels sont les principaux defis lies au developpement d'une communaute du renseignement criminel au Quebec. Plus precisement, nous protons une attention toute particuliere a la formation et au renouvellement des competences dans ce domaine. En retracant les principales defaillances qu'ont connu les services de renseignement au cours de la derniere decennie et en nous inspirant des propos recueillis lors d'un seminaire sur la formation en renseignement, nous dressons dans un premier temps un profil sommaire des competences requises a l'execution de cette fonction policiere. Par la suite, nous decrivons les efforts deployes dans le but d'elaborer une formation universitaire adaptee aux besoins des services de renseignement. Finalement, nous examinons comment cette formation pourrait contribuer a l'imputabilite des organisations policieres.

Senators charged that Congress is moving with unseemly haste to overhaul the uppermost tiers of the intelligence hierarchy and that result would be an organizational disaster. The House and Senate measures were widely divergent, though members of both directors hailed the creation of a new director to administer the intelligence community with some degree of autonomy over funding and personnel.

The chairman of the US Senate and his other predecessors are fighting a case, which will give the national intelligence director (NID) unprecedented powers to control intelligence units from Langley, Virginia to Tora Bora, Afghanistan to fight the war on terrorism. The Pentagon controls over 80% of the intelligence structure and opposes the move to give an intelligence chief much authority over military personnel.

A possible overhaul of the nation's spy apparatus is the next major item of business for the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Some members want to see sweeping changes, whereas others are urging a go-slow approach that is likely to put the issue on the next administration's agenda.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Departments of the Army and Defense, or the [...]

An urgent need for the military to get itself prepared for working with various domestic civilian agencies is being highly indicated by the recent events in U.S. history and ongoing planning. In this attempt, it is suggested that the civilians should opt for the most important incident command system (ICS), the mechanism that organizes command and control elements for complex emergencies allowing various agencies to organize and work together.